In a small stockpot, heat the olive oil until it shimmers. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion begins to soften, about eight minutes. Add the celery and carrots and cook another fifteen minutes. Then add the tomatoes, red wine, bay leaves, salt, sugar and pepper. Bring to a boil and then lower heat. Simmer, uncovered, for about an hour. Stir occasionally.

Notes: This is fine with pasta but I like it best as a base for other things - like a gooey delicious Italian Sausage sub, for example.

I remember you mentioning your stingy tomato plants a few posts ago. What gives, I wonder? I can't keep up with mine despite having a house full of tomato gobblers, and I've got only 2 vines! (I'm in Mpls., so I'd assume we've had the same weather.) Weird.

We make large batches of spaghetti w/ meat sauce and freeze it in 1 lb tubs. We tried making it from Romas but it's SO much work for so little sauce we went back to using a good canned puree and canned sauce and going from there. We do not use sugar but use plenty of basil to "sweeten" it , but then again , this is spaghetti sauce that cooks for almost 3 days, not marinara so the acid cooks out of it too.

Frozen marinara has sooo many uses! I sneak it into everything for my picky eater. If you only add one or two little frozen cups, they add flavor and nutrition to many meals. I add them to ground meat for burritos, meatloaf, soups/stews, meatballs, etc.

Comments are closed on the roasted tomato entry.... Just wanted to let you know I made those tonight, using my bumper crop of golden pear tomatoes. I would never have thought of roasting the little buggers if I hadn't been reading here, so thanks for that. They were delicious! But I was surprised to discover that they tasted exactly like sundried tomatoes. Did I do it right?

I made this tonight, and am now eagerly waiting for more recipes that will use the marinara-pucks!

I measured mine when I dropped it into the muffin tins, and they are juuuuuust under .5 cup each. I plan to make Chicken Cacciatore next with my marinara. Maybe not this recipe exactly as I don't have a dry sherry on-hand. http://www.italianchef.com/cacciatore.html

I'm really enjoying this blog. I love reading Here Be Hippogriffs because your writing is so compelling, and your personality is infectious... in a good way! Being a paired-up gal but with no plans for kids at the moment (nor do I plan on battling infertility -- but then who does?) I have very little to say on HBH, but I do love to read it (and learn from it) all the time.

Since we can all eat and I like to cook (sometimes) I can even comment here without worrying about giving any stupid ass-vice! Or at least *this* ass-vice is only about food. Far less of an emotional topic.

At the risk of sounding all fan-girl-y, can I just say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE your Spicy Shrimp Pasta recipe you posted on HBH about a million years ago? It's my go-to recipe for dinner parties, and everyone always loves it!

It used to be on the sidebar of the old blog design. I treasure the food-stained printed copy; I even managed to hang onto it through 2 moves.

(Thinking: why haven't I just typed it up to ensure I don't ever lose it? Hadn't occurred to me until just now. Duh.)

I'm kidding. I could not be less married to this recipe if I had just picked it up at a bar.

But my reasoning here, if you will put down the spice rack and hear me out, is that keeping the sauce very basic enables you to go in a lot of different directions when you use it as a base for other things. So I added a ton of basil for the meatball subs but I would add something else for something else.